Technical Indicators Point to a Trump Win

The polls have been up and down this year, so it’s been hard to figure out who would win. Part of the problem is that both candidates are the least popular in history. That means party loyalty may not be as important as hostility toward the individual candidate. That also means that Hillary Clinton’s inherited Electoral College advantage may not help her.

Allan Lichtman says he can predict the outcome of any U.S. presidential election. He often does it months or even years ahead of time. Oh, and his predictions have been right in every presidential election since 1984.

But Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University, doesn’t use polling, demographics or sophisticated analysis of swing states. He makes his predictions based on 13 true/false statements that he says indicate whether the incumbent party will retain the White House or lose it in a given election.

Lichtman and Russian scientist Volodia Keilis-Borok came up with the keys — a series of true/false statements — in the early 1980s. The idea is that if more than half of the keys are true, the incumbent party will stay in power, and if more than half are false, the challenging party will win the White House.

The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:

1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Lichtman’s logic is that elections are not about individuals, or even parties, but rather, public satisfaction with the “incumbent” party.

We reconceptualized presidential elections, not as Carter vs. Reagan, Republicans vs. Democrats, liberals vs. conservatives, but as “party holding the White House” vs. the challenging party. Now, in earthquake prediction, they predict by looking at factors in the physical environment associated with stability and upheaval. So we chose to look at factors in the political environment associated with stability — the party holding the White House stays in power — and earthquakes — the party holding the White House is thrown out.

And I had a theory behind this. This did come from my studying of presidential elections. And my theory was that the pundits and the scholars are all wrong about predicting presidential elections. That the real key is not the candidates, or the issues, or the debates, or the ads, but rather the performance of the party holding the White House — that essentially, American voters are ultimately pragmatic. And if the party holding the White House did a good job, they’d give them four more years. If not, they’d toss them out.

So, what did the professor say about this year?

Right now the Democrats are clearly down four keys: The mandate key, which is based on midterm elections — they got shellacked in 2014. The sitting president key. Obviously Obama isn’t running again. The policy change key, which only applies to the second term, and there’s been no significant, lasting policy changes in the second term. And the incumbent charisma key. Whatever you may think of Hillary Clinton, she’s no John F. Kennedy or Franklin Roosevelt.

That means this election will be decided by the two keys hanging fire: The contest key, No. 2, and the foreign policy success key, No. 11. It will not be decided by the debates, the speeches, the ads, the tricks of the campaign.

Everyone seems to agree that this is a year in which most people want “change.” That’s why Lichtman has said Trump is likely to win. Another voice says that the stock market is also calling a Trump win.

My job is to interpret what I see in the stock market and the market is forecasting a Donald Trump victory. That is one of the reasons why the market has been strong and will continue to be strong. . .

1) Trump will win Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania and it’s game over! My reasoning is the INCREDIBLE number of people who are quietly supporting Trump but can’t voice their opinion. . .
2) The stock market started a new bull market in July of 2016. The technicals are incredibly strong and the sentiment forecast is partly miserable with a chance of a crash. The thought of a 1994-95 repeat scenario for the markets (see chart) BLOWS people’s minds away. . . .My theory is that it’s forecasting a Trump win, a more business friendly environment, and a stronger economy over the next few years.

The performance of Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index from July 31 to Oct. 31 has a curious way of predicting the winner of the presidential election. . . the pattern is solid, as shown in this chart by Sam Stovall, equity strategist for S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Should the S&P 500 record a positive return from July 31 to October 31, it signals the reelection of the party in power, while a decline suggests replacement. The S&P ended September slightly below its July close, so the election results are at the mercy of the market’s October performance.

There were a couple of times the S&P predictor failed, but then, that seems to reinforce Lichtman’s theory above.

Two times the pattern didn’t hold were in 1968 and 1980, when influential third-party candidates were in race, including George Wallace, who took about 14 percent of the popular vote in ’68. The pattern also failed in 1956, which Stovall says could be attributed to geopolitical events putting the markets on edge. That was the year of the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Uprising, he noted.

Trump “bullishness” is not limited to the academic and business fields. This year, liberals are also forecasting doom for the liberal candidate. Cenk Uygur, host of online site, “Young Turks,” for example.

Cenk Uygur, host of ‘The Young Turks’ predicts that Donald Trump will win an electoral victory in November. . . I’ve got Trump at 279-259… I gave him Florida, Ohio. . .he’s a populist candidate when the country’s angry and you run and it’s the most establishment candidate we’ve ever seen against him. It was a terrible idea by the Democrats to support Hillary Clinton. . .

I’m very worried — and if the Democrats are not really, really worried that, in this populist time Donald Trump doesn’t have an excellent chance to win, they’re completely wrong.

In fact, even Michael Moore (liberal film maker, including Fahrenheit 9/11) says Trump will win, according to Breitbart.

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” while discussing the popularity of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump liberal filmmaker Michael Moore said angry voters “see Donald Trump as their human Molotov cocktail, that they get to go into the voting booth on November 8th and throw him into a political system.”

Moore said, “Yes, which I don’t want him to win. Let’s make that clear. I’ve been trying to say for months here, I live in Michigan. Across the Midwest, across the rust belt, I understand why a lot of people are angry. They see Donald Trump as their human Molotov cocktail, that they get to go into the voting booth on November 8th and throw him into a political system that has made their lives miserable miserable.”

In fact, Moore’s own website offers five reasons why he thinks Trump will win.

1. Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit. I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010. . .Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done?

2. The Last Stand of the Angry White Man. Our male-dominated, 240-year run of the USA is coming to an end. A woman is about to take over! How did this happen?! On our watch!. . .That’s a small peek into the mind of the Endangered White Male. . .This monster, the “Feminazi,” the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds through her eyes or wherever she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, after having had to endure eight years of a black man telling us what to do, we’re supposed to just sit back and take eight years of a woman bossing us around?

3. The Hillary Problem. Can we speak honestly, just among ourselves? And before we do, let me state, I actually like Hillary – a lot – and I think she has been given a bad rap she doesn’t deserve. But her vote for the Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. . . Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected.

4. The Depressed Sanders Vote. Stop fretting about Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. . . “depressed vote” – meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A depressed voter.

5. The Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. . .There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can.

Goethe Behr is a Contributing Editor and Moderator at Election Central. He started out posting during the 2008 election, became more active during 2012, and very active in 2016. He has been a political junkie since the 1950s and enjoys adding a historical perspective.

72 COMMENTS

I don’t really think that anything historical applies. This race is so off the charts different than anything any of us have experienced. There has never been a candidate as devisive as DT and president Obama is one of the most popular presidents ever. I don’t think Lichtman can predict this one, at least I really hope not. I’m with her!

that was the point he was trying to make, lichtman was saying even though trump is favored by his system and historical circumstances, because he is who he is. he could still lose, despite the odds being in his favor and i quote “he may well shatter patterns of history that have held for more than 150 years, lose this election even if the historical circumstances favor it.”

I also watched the part where Alan Lichtman saying that Trump has spent his entire life enriching himself at the expense of others. But I guess you ignored that part. And let’s not forget that 50-70% of the things Trump say are false. But sure hillary is the untrustworthy one

Do you think trump will be? An election brings out your true self. Like at the presidential debate trump was rude, interruptive and took hillary’s bait far too easily. While hillary remained calm and composed. If pence was running for president hillary would have a bit more of a challenge. But unfortunately for the Republicans, he is not running for president.

You are one dumbed down indoctrinated deceived ignorant uniformed marxist communist libtard murdering hillary lover. She hates your guts you stupid peon. You are loyal to the exact one that oppresses and enslaves you, and wants to make you poor, dumb blind and stupid. You sympathize with a mass killer of innocent people. My only explanation for you is you are mentally ill, inherently evil, and stupid brain dead lazy ass Tory ready to be wiped out by Patriots. Go ahead and take your stand with Satan. But remember when and after Trump wins you will now be known as an enemy of the state and US Constitution.
Fucking dumb as dirt Luciferian leftist Tories like you will be fleeing country soon. You are nothing but pathetic antichrist leftists cowards sheep to a slaughter NWO Globalist stool pigeons. You don’t even realize the very one you support wants you enslaved and working to death for her. Now go to hell antichrist leftist retard

So, no evidence, huh? Thought so. If you had any actual evidence for it, then I’d respect your claim. As it stands, it merits no respect. Baseless claims without evidence are not respected until evidence is presented.

What facts are these you speak of? You seem to be privy to information that no one else is here. Where’s your evidence of criminality? The FBI conducted a year long investigation and found nothing, but mere carelessness. That’s not a crime, in case you don’t know. If it were, we’d all be in jail.

If, however, you have powerful, reasonable, damning evidence of criminal action, then please present it here at your earliest opportunity for appraisal. If not, then your claim can be summarily dismissed.

having a private server with confidential data as secretary of state is criminal. deleting these emails is criminal. letting her maid print confidential emails is criminal. read the laws. but besides that the FBI is investigating the criminal Clinton foundation.

Ah, I see now. You seem to be ignorant of what is lawful and what is not.

Having a private email server is not even remotely criminal. It is perfectly acceptable and quite commonly beneficial to have a private email server on a sub-network for security purposes. So long as the server is kept up to date with security patches and protocol is observed, then no problems exist. And this is where she was a little careless. Which she was chastised for. But nothing remotely criminal about it.

Deleting emails is not criminal. We’ve all deleted emails. And especially so, when you have sensitive and confidential information on your server. I have been involved in top secret government level contracts involving non-disclosure agreements and this is common practice. Again, not even remotely criminal by any stretch of the imagination.

I think you may have the word maid mistaken with aide. Her aides printed out her emails for her. The vast majority of her emails were non-sensitive and this therefore was not an issue. Read her emails if you don’t believe me. She asked them to print out only non-classified emails. Again, this is not a crime to do so.

The FBI investigate many things. That does not mean that there’s any guilt surrounding that investigation. You seem to be assuming people guilty until proven innocent. Sorry, but that’s not how due process works in this country. And in order to prove someone guilty of a crime, then evidence of a crime has to exist. EVIDENCE. See how that word keeps coming up? Evidence or criminality or STFU. And I mean that in the nicest possible way 🙂

No evidence, then your conspiracy theory claims can simply be dismissed. And I assure they have been. Thanks for playing though.

are you deaf? as secretary of state and other state officials there are other requirements than for normal citizens. youre a troll or really stupid. HER MAID PRINTED THE CLASSIFIED EMAILS. google it stupid! youre too stupid for life. piss off

Ad hominem fallacy. No, I am neither deaf, stupid or a troll. I simply have a greater grasp of top secret contracts, non-disclosure agreements and the law than you do given that I have direct experience of it.

*sighs* Again, not illegal to do so, even if it were true. It seems only to be reported in biased right-wing media. I see no unbiased reporting of it.

Your knowledge of law is pitifully low. It is not illegal to get someone to print out your emails in this position. Neither is it even illegal to tell a close partner or friend about the data in question. You could be potentially be chastised for it, depending on the details of your NDA, but it’s not illegal. It’s not willfully divulging top secret data to those who should not have access to that data. It is careless, sure, but not criminal. Until you have some grasp of the legality of the case, then you are entirely ill-equipped to be debating in this forum on it.

If it’s illegal to get your aides to print your emails for you, even if it were her “maid”, then why did the FBI find no criminality in it after a year long investigation? Why do you think you imagine criminality (where there is none) and yet the FBI investigation somehow overlooked it? THINK about it, rather than continually masturbating over your non-evidential conspiracy theories. She did nothing whatsoever wrong and there was no evidence found of anything remotely criminal in her use of a private email server.

As I said earlier, I’ve been involved in top secret contracts and I fully understand the gravity of non-disclosure. I am also an IT professional who understands IT security as well as governmental level security protocols.

But, by all means, continue to imagine that I don’t know what I’m talking about despite evidence to the contrary. What are you security protocol credentials here, I wonder? If you know more about it than I, I will be very surprised.

“your stupid words proof your claims to be untrue. your no security or it professional”

LMAO. You can barely write in English and yet you call me stupid? LOL. I’ve been a IT professional software engineer for many years. And as I said, I’ve been involved in top secret contracts involving the highest level of security clearance involving software with military applications.

Again, what’s your credentials and knowledge of the legality of this matter? I have seen none so far, except a high level of conspiracy theory and belief in the credibility of Wikileaks, which is no longer a credible source of data. Too much Faux News and tin foil hat wearing.

When you have some reasonable evidence to present that proves your allegations, then I will certainly appraise it, but if you have nothing more than what you’ve presented, then there’s no reason to accept your bizarre claims.

You are completely ignorant of what is known as burden of proof. The burden of proof lies with you who is making the claim of criminality. If you are incapable of presenting reasonable evidence, then your claim can be dismissed until evidence is presented. Your claim has now been dismissed. You lost this debate. Better luck next time. I suggest you come equipped with evidence next time you make ridiculous claims.

Next you’ll be suggesting that there is an omnipotent god that watches over us. Lol.

LOL. No, they most certainly did not. My wife’s sons are all very intelligent, compassionate and kind-hearted human beings, so no they could never vote for an obnoxious, racist, misogynist xenophobe like Drumpf. But continue trolling, if you wish, as you’re merely undermining any credibility you could possibly have hoped to achieve.

Which is no longer a credible source of information. Any reasonable evidence from a credible source? Or a link to the information from Wikileaks at the very least showing this in the absence of any credible source?

And calling someone a moron, when they are clearly quite intelligent in a vain effort to win your argument is ad hominem fallacy again. You don’t prove claims via insult. Trump’s campaign is testament to that.

See that’s the difference between you and I: you base your beliefs on mere whispers in the wind. I base mine on evidence and skepticism. No evidence, no reason to accept nonsensical assertions. Keeps me from becoming a gullible, tin foil hat wearing troglodyte troll like yourself.

Show where I have lied. Evidence for that additional claim, please. What would you like to know about IT or IT Security? I’m perfectly willing to provide further evidence as required. What would you like to know about Java? C#? Shell scripts? Batch files? VBScript? JavaScript? MVC frameworks? Entity frameworks? Networking via TCP/IP, UDP, etc? Satisfied yet? Or do I need to embarrass you further? You have no evidence for your claims. I’m not the one claiming guilt, so I have no burden of proof to satisfy here. You do 🙂

All this hype about it being a close race is baloney. It’s not a close race. The polls brought to us by the dishonest media are fake, skewed, fudged, falsified. The scum-o-crat press supports Hillary Poltroon Clinton u n c o n d i t i o n a l l y. Everything the common voter hears is a lie. So here’s the truth, the reality, the way it is. Trump not only wins, he wins Yugely. If scum-o-crats have one quark of self honesty, they would know that a sick woman with a scandalous past, holding rallies with sparse crowds, cannot beat a movement filling large hangars and arenas. It’s over. IT IS OVER. Even if the scum-o-crats cheat (which they will) it’s over. So I rejoice. I’ve been rejoicing because I’m honest enough to face obvious facts. She’s done, she’s finished, she’s toast. One last reality: if a rigged election should make her president, that would be akin to the first shot fired at Ft. Sumter in 1861: secession and civil war would ensue.

The media is dishonest. Don’t believe anything they say. I don’t. I just know what I see. Millions of excited trumpsters and hillary’s poor support. Who are the independents going with? Anyone, even a scum-o-crat can see Trump’s going to win…..if……they…..are…..honest.

America is built on equality and basic freedoms granted by the constitution, so no, he won’t ever be president based on that alone. His dismantling of the first amendment, his hateful xenophobic policies and his misogyny and racism will see to that. No reasonable human being can vote for such a tyrannical, un-American monstrosity as Drumpf. Even reasonable Republicans can see how vile he would be for the nation.

From what I have been seeing in my area, I think the presidential vote is going to be very much like the BREXIT vote in the UK. Many people in the UK didn’t want to be labeled in favor of exiting the EU, so either they stayed mum about their beliefs or pretended to be against BREXIT.

I see the American presidential race in much the same way. Many people don’t want to be labeled as RACIST, BIGOTS, MISOGYNIST, ISLAMAPHOB or any other label the TOLERANT? liberals assign them if they show a preference for Trump. Like the UK many Americans are staying quiet.

Like the article says, once these same people are alone in the ballot box they will be free to express their true feelings. After all the votes have been tabulated, we can expect to hear sad news from the Clinton camp. Once she realizes that her MEGALOMANIA has been thwarted she will jump into a tub of water and disintegrate!!!?

As polls make it increasingly clear that Hillary will win in a landslidebof historical proportions, it’s no surprise that Trumpists turn to pure wishful thinking. Republicans are already repeating their 2012 fiasco of “unskewed polls”, embarrassing themselves all over again. That yahoo article linked in the post is absolutelt laughable. It’s predicated on the idea that the economy would be doing better under a Republican administration – an idea that has been conclusively disproven by history.

Election night will be a popcorn party. I love watching conservative pundits scrambling to make up excuses for being 100% wrong about everything they’ve ever said. That happens remarkably often, by the way. Hm, I wonder why that is.

I question Lichtman’s conclusions about charisma. Hillary may not be FDR, but for many women in the country, all the glass ceilings she has broken, and possibility of breaking the highest one, make her a deeply charismatic figure. I think Lichtman underestimates how much love there is for her. Even a lot of Republican women admire her and plan to vote for her. As for Trump, do we call him charismatic? To many, he’s very charismatic. But to even more people, he’s downright repulsive. He’s anti-charismatic, in a way that has no historical precedent. So maybe Lichtman is reading his own indicators wrong. I count 7 true to 6 false. (I don’t have the numbers, but I’m guessing that 6 is true, because the previous 2 terms includes the great recession.)

With all due respect to the opinions expressed here, I think many will revisit their stances based on the that me to light the evening of friday 10/7. A video that was not in any way connected to the Clinton campaign.
If this does not cause his supporters to question his suitability for office, then they would follow to hell, where he certainly will take us if elected.